"You snore now." Jimmy was sitting cross-legged on the end of his bed when Comet opened his eyes. "Did you know that?"
"What are you doing?" Comet sat up, letting the thin, navy blue blankets fall into his lap. "You take up like, half my bed. You have a bed; go sit on that." He jerked his thumb towards Jimmy's bed, only a metre away from his in their cramped, shared dorm room.
Jimmy leaned back against the wall. He picked at the peeling, dull blue wallpaper as he spoke. "I just wanted to talk. You know, now that you can talk."
Comet sighed. "About what?"
"Well, Deirdre's pretty hot-"
He groaned. "Go back to sleep, Jimmy."
"Come on man, I was kidding. Besides, I can't sleep; you snore too much."
"Well you snore, too," Comet argued. "Just throw a pillow at me or something, I dunno. It works on you."
"You've been throwing pillows at me?" Jimmy grinned. "You monster; I thought I was developing telekinetic abilities. You've ruined my day."
"I'm not a monster." Comet kicked the sheets off him, and pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around himself. "I'm an alien. Part-alien. One-eighth, if you want to be exact."
Jimmy turned his head to look at one of the family photos Comet had pinned to the cracked wall. "Yeah, I was wondering why your parents looked, well..."
"Normal? They're not."
"Nobody's family is normal, dude. I just meant they don't have the skin. You know, your skin."
"Green skin," Comet said. "You can say it; I'm not offended."
Jimmy pulled the photo off the wall. "So what's the deal with your parents, anyways? If they're not aliens, what are they?"
"Dude, you're going to rip that. Give it to me." Comet lunged forward and wrestled the photo out of Jimmy's grip. He discarded it on the stack of textbooks piled next to his bed. "Why do you care about my family, anyways? It's not like you're ever going to meet them."
"Ouch. I thought we were friends, Comet. Best friends. Why can't I meet them? You afraid they're gonna think we're secretly gay for each other or something? Half the dorm probably thinks that already; you follow me around like a lost puppy." Jimmy smiled. "It's cute."
"It's not cute." Comet glared back. "I wish I had other friends, okay? It's not like anybody wants to be, though. You're the only one who's made any effort, and only because you had to." He pulled at a loose thread hanging off the hem of his t-shirt.
"Hey, nobody forced me to be your friend," Jimmy protested. "I could've totally ignored you first year; it would've been easy enough. But no, I took the time to get to know you, because I like you... not like that, but like a brother. You know?"
"Yeah, I got it," Comet said with an amused smile.
"So now that we're clear...." Jimmy shifted, stretching his legs over the side of the bed. "Are you going to tell me why your parents aren't as normal as they look? Do they like... probe people? That's what aliens do, right?"
"No, we do not probe people. We act just like everybody else, okay? My parents have normal jobs, and went to school like normal people, and had kids the normal way," Comet shot back.
Jimmy frowned. "Okay, but you just said they weren't normal."
He sighed. "They're witches, okay? Well, my mom's a witch. Dad's a warlock. That's all there is to it. Happy?"
"They're magic?" Jimmy raised both eyebrows. "So... are you, like, magic, too? Or are they not your biological parents? They aren't, are they? That's why they don't have the green skin, right?"
"What? No, don't be stupid." Comet leaned over the bed to retrieve the photograph he'd taken from Jimmy. He held it out towards his roommate. "See? I look just like my dad."
Jimmy studied the photograph. "Yeah, I guess. 'Cept your dad's a ginger, and his mouth is a totally different shape, and that still doesn't explain the skin thing."
Comet rolled his eyes. "Green skin's from my mom's side of the family. She's a quarter-alien, you know, it just doesn't show."
"So did you get her abilities, too?" he asked. "Or are you a muggle?"
"That'd be a squib, Jimmy," Comet corrected. "But yeah, I got them."
Jimmy's smile widened. "You know what that means, right?" He leaned closer. "Yer a wizard, Comet."
"I guess, yeah."
"Is that... that's how you got your voice, right?" Jimmy toyed with the tortoiseshell glasses he always wore. He didn't need them, he'd confessed to Comet soon after they met; he just wore them because he claimed it made him look smarter. The effect was lost when they were paired with a shirt that read 'I'm Hotter Than Your Girlfriend', heart print boxers, and stubble that should have been shaved three days ago.
Comet rubbed at his throat. "My parents always told me that they couldn't do anything about it. I believed them, too." He glanced at the photograph Jimmy was still holding. "Until I started reading about the magical properties of plants. For class. It was stupid but... I thought... I thought maybe I could figure something out."
"And you did, obviously," Jimmy interjected.
"Yeah." Comet twisted his hands together. "It's just... there's got to be a reason they didn't tell me, right?"
"Hey," Jimmy set the photo down on the bedspread, and put a hand on Comet's shoulder. "They probably didn't know there was a cure, that's all. There's got to be, like, some weird old textbook here they wouldn't have back home." He gave Comet a reassuring smile. "There's no way they'd keep something like that from you."
"What if they did know?" Comet asked. "What if the potion only lasts for a little bit of time and then it wears off?" He rested his chin on his knees. "What if that's why they didn't want to tell me? You know, so I wouldn't be let down?"
"You think this thing's gonna wear off?"
"I don't know," Comet mumbled. He tightened his arms around his knees. "I don't know." His voice wavered.
"What are you gonna do about it?" Jimmy asked. "You want me to take you to a hospital or something?"
"It's a bit late for that now." Comet frowned. "I took it weeks ago. I doubt there's much I could do about it at this point." He stared at his bedspread. "What would I even tell the ER staff, anyways? I took some weird potion? They'd probably think I was on drugs."
"Nah, you don't really look the type. Probably not necessary, anyways. It's been what, a month? If something bad was gonna happen, it would've definitely happened by now. Trust me." Jimmy gave him an unconvincing smile, then slid off the bed. Comet watched Jimmy pad over to his desk, and retrieve a laptop from under a stack of papers.
"That's mine," he said.
"I know." Jimmy had a mischievous look. He sat down on the bed with the laptop tucked under his arm. Placing it on the covers between the two of them, he opened the laptop, then opened up Facebook in a new tab. "Man, you really should put a password on this thing."
Comet groaned. "What are you doing now?"
Jimmy turned the laptop so that Comet could no longer read the screen. "Look dude," he said, "let's say I'm wrong. Let's say there's a chance your voice is a limited-time thing. You know what we're gonna do?" He looked up at Comet, who raised an eyebrow. "We're gonna make the most of it," he concluded. Jimmy began to type something, and Comet shifted in an attempt to read what he was writing.
"What are you doing?" Comet asked again. He made an attempt to swipe the laptop, but Jimmy intercepted him. "Give that back. Why do you always take my stuff?"
"Don't worry, man." Jimmy's fingers flew across the keyboard, his grin growing wider as he continued to type. He wasn't even typing properly, to Comet's annoyance; he was pecking at the keys with his two index fingers. "I've got everything under control."
"Do you always type like that?" Comet asked. "That's so inefficient."
"Dude, shut up," Jimmy scolded. "I'm doing you a huge favour."
"Are you going to tell me what that is?"
Jimmy turned the laptop once again so that it was facing Comet, and slid it closer. "See for yourself," he said, looking far too proud of himself for Comet's comfort.
Comet leaned forward and examined the screen. His stomach dropped when he saw who Jimmy had started a conversation with. "Oh god, you didn't-"
"Oh, come on, just read what she said." Jimmy rolled his eyes. "I promise I didn't say anything weird, and I even typed in perfect, grammatically correct sentences, just like you, you loser."
"There's like, four typos in this." Comet groaned. "She's going to think I'm stupid."
"Nah, don't worry about it; she'll never notice." Jimmy watched as Comet continued to read the conversation. "So? Am I the best, or what?"
"You asked Marielle if she wanted to go skating with us... why?"
"Aw, come on man. I know you like her. You get like, ridiculously happy whenever you get the chance to talk to her. It's almost adorable."
"We haven't even been friends that long. She probably doesn't even want to go; she probably only said yes to be nice." Comet pushed the laptop away from himself.
"Look, you said that you're worried the potion might wear off. What if that happens before you get a chance to really ask her out. You know, in person? If you keep putting it off, you might never get the chance." Jimmy jabbed at the screen with a finger. "Look, she wants to go with you. Just show up and give it a try, alright?"